RSS Reds Team Notes

[Cincinnati Reds]

On Elly De La Cruz and switch-hitting

If anyone stepped into the Major League Baseball scene for the first time and hit just .184/.231/.263 with 49 strikeouts in 122 PA, you’d have some initial concerns. Maybe they’re just getting their feet wet. Maybe they’re still young enough to figure it out. It’s rough out there at first, after all.

If they backed it up the next year by hitting .224/.307/.354 with 69 strikeouts in 217 PA, you’d hopefully find some solace in the gradual improvement. Hey, the K-rate dropped from over 40% to just over 31%! That .307 OBP isn’t ideal, but I’ve seen worse. Still, it’s hard to argue in any form or fashion that the above line is truly palatable, and odds are if that player didn’t provide insane value elsewhere in his game he’d be heading back to the minor leagues to work things out.

If they managed to get a shot at a third year, though, and slumped back to hitting just .246/.276/.342 with 61 K in 210 PA, you’d simply have to be worried it wasn’t working out. The strikeouts improved a tad (down to 29%), but the ability get on base even evaporated. That all came with a .316 BABIP, too, so it wasn’t as if bad luck was dragging the overall numbers down (and, for the record, the BABIP the year before was .316 and it was .302 in the first year).

This offensive profile has problems galore. Through 549 total PA now, this player has hit just .220/.278/.329 with 13 homers and a ghoulish 35/179 BB/K. Billy Hamilton hit .239/.292/.325 for his career. Skip Schumaker’s Reds career featured a .238/.297/.322 line in 539 PA. Santiago Espinal’s time in Cincinnati has seen him hit .245/.294/.322 in 719 PA.

These are not the comparisons you want.

If you haven’t pieced things together just yet, the player I’m singling out here is none other than Elly De La Cruz, the potential superstar shortstop of the Reds who’s already made a pair of All-Star teams, led them in OPS+ in back to back seasons (as the only ‘plus’ offensive player they’ve boasted in that time), and who has been worth nearly 9 bWAR dating back tot he start of the 2024 season. Thing is, I’ve singled out only Elly’s work hitting right-handed against left-handed pitchers, something he continues to try to do despite the above numbers being, well, quite bad.

In a vastly larger sample size, Elly has rocked right-handed pitching to the tune of .271/.350/.496 with 47 homers and a palatable 136/364 BB/K in 1273 PA, and those numbers have been consistent in each of his three big league seasons. Though his power took a slight step back in 2025 from where it was in 2024 against righties, he posted career highs in average (.277) and OBP (.362) against them, all while drastically reducing his proclivity to strike out against them. In this arena, there’s been real progress from Elly, and it’s enough to make you wonder whether that’s something he should just focus on entirely.

Switch-hitters, when they’re actually good against both lefties and righties, are perhaps the single most valuable players in lineups. They’re the battleships that anchor entire lineups, the Jose Ramirezs and Francisco Lindors who never need to be hit for regardless of who’s on the mound. At still just 23 years of age, there’s still certainly the chance that Elly can figure out how to be a good enough hitter right-handed against lefties, but so far his production there is enough to make you wonder if he’d really be any worse against lefties if he just hit left-handed against them.

This even being a question dovetails with what else the baseball heads have been discussing about Cincinnati’s superstar – that he’s playing too many games and being ground to a pulp down the stretch. Only Matt Olson and Pete Alonso (324 each) have played in more games than Elly (322) since the start of the 2024 season, and in both of those years Elly’s second-half stats have fallen completely off the same page as those of his first-halves. Getting him a little bit more rest here and there is the obvious way to begin to address this problem, and it sure would look like getting him days off when there are left-handed starters on the mound would be the days to target.

So, if you’re going to start getting him rest by skipping days when he’d otherwise hit right-handed, well, maybe just get him to hit left-handed all the time?

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/stat-co...-splits-switch-hitting-rumors-cincinnati-reds

 

[Cincinnati Reds]

Which Reds regular do you think is the biggest offseason trade chip?

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Reds fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.

We are all acutely aware of how risk-averse the Cincinnati Reds are, and have been for some time. The idea of them jumping into the top-tier of free agency to spend big – and for many years – to sign the best players on that market is so off the table that we don’t even consider the Kyle Tuckers, the Alex Bregmans around here.

Heck, the lack of contract extensions for their current core of young-ish (yet rapidly aging) suggests they aren’t even confident in locking down many of their own in-house options.

What we do know, though, is that they aren’t in a rebuild – even if what they have built so far doesn’t have much to show for it. They are going to try to give Terry Francona a roster that can eke out some wins in 2026, even if they won’t ever look on-paper like a powerhouse. What we also know, though, is that this roster has holes galore, especially when you factor in the likely departures of Nick Martinez, Austin Hays, Zack Littell, Emilio Pagan, Scott Barlow, and potentially even Brent Suter.

If you squint, you can see a complete active roster with what they’ve already got. They are deep with starting pitchers, and both Rhett Lowder and Brandon Williamson will be back healthy in 2026 if things go to plan. With Sal Stewart up full-time, Spencer Steer’s versatility could provide more backfill in the outfield without Hays – especially with a full season of Ke’Bryan Hayes now on the books.

Still, that looks like a seriously iffy offensive lineup, and their bullpen would need both a complete rebuild and notable leverage promotions for every single arm down there with any sort of experience. So, it sure seems likely that if the Reds are going to find some big-time pieces to augment their 2026 club, they’re going to likely need to do it through a trade.

That young-ish (yet rapidly aging) core also has several guys hitting their arbitration years, so they are no longer cheap league-minimum guys, and that matters here. If the Reds are seriously tight on their budget the way we all know them to be most years, that could mean someone who just got more expensive might be the precise person they deal to get pieces that fit better both positionally and financially. Two of those – Tyler Stephenson and Brady Singer – are even set to be free agents at the end of 2026, and neither has a long-term extension in hand.

With that in mind, which player of the current core of the Reds listed below do you think has the highest likelihood of being traded away this offseason?

Vote in the survey below, and let us know your thinking in the comments. We’ll circle back with the results at the end of the week!

MLB Reacts are brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook.

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/cincinn...t-cincinnati-reds-trade-chip-prospects-rumors

 

[Cincinnati Reds]

Cam Collier lighting up Arizona Fall League play

Cam Collier’s 2025 season could not have begun in more frustrating fashion. In just the first week of March, he tore the UCL in his left thumb while tagging out a baserunner in Cactus League play in Arizona during spring training, an injury that required surgery and over a month of rehab.

MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon detailed the situation at the time.

Keep in mind that this came on the heels of a 2024 season where Collier socked 20 dingers for High-A Dayton, a mark that tied for the most among all hitters in the Midwest League. And, of course, he did that at just 19 years of age.

The former 1st round pick of the Reds was eased in upon his return to the field following surgery and recovery, first getting two weeks with the ACL Reds in Goodyear before returning to Dayton for a pair of weeks in June. He eventually was promoted up to AA Chattanooga for the remainder of the 2025 season, yet a cursory glance at his season stats shows that the power he flashed throughout 2024 simply did not return.

He hit only 4 homers across all levels in 2025, including just 2 in 308 PA with the Lookouts. The rest of his game looked quite fine – he did hit .279 with a .391 OBP in 396 PA across that trio of stints – but he slugged just .384 overall, including just .347 at AA.

So, it was encouraging to see Cam listed among the Cincinnati Reds contingent heading to the Arizona Fall League this October, as it signaled that the Reds thought he still had plenty more to work on to fully get back to where he’d been prior to the injury. They clearly thought he had a lot more rust to shake off, and the early returns from his work with the Peoria Javelinas suggest they were correct.

Through the first two weeks of the season, Cam ranks among the Top 10 in hits (T-7th), OBP (8th), walks (T-10th), doubles (T-4th), and runs (T-8th), all while boasting an impressive 8/10 BB/K in 31 AB and a 1.004 OPS that ranks 11th in AFL play. He also ripped a homer on October 17th that left the bat at 107.2 mph.

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While his youth and injury have bumped him slightly to the back of the minds of many Reds fans, it’s worth pointing out that a) he hit .337/.425/.452 over his final 120 PA of the season at AA and b) when he’s healthy he has pop to spare. That means that if he wraps AFL play in a good spot, there’s every reason to believe he’ll hit his way to AAA at some point in 2026 – on much the similar path as Sal Stewart a year before him.

How much his play in the desert over the next few weeks directly impacts the Reds decision making for the rest of the offseason is impossible to quantify, but rest assured him showing all the tools that made him a Top 100 prospect prior to his injury and his proximity to the big league roster will be the complete opposite of unnoticed. Cam, clearly, is very much back on the radar, and has his sights set on Cincinnati at some point next year.

(Remind me again why the Reds traded for a 3B who can’t hit who’s signed through 2030?)

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/farmers...prospects-cincinnati-reds-arizona-fall-league

 

[Cincinnati Reds]

Ke’Bryan Hayes takes home Fielding Bible Award for 3B

Even if it didn’t make a ton of sense at the time – and, to many, still doesn’t – it was clear as day why the Cincinnati Reds made the trade with the Pittsburgh Pirates at the 2025 trade deadline to acquire Ke’Bryan Hayes. He is, and has been, the single best defensive 3B in the game for a handful of years already, and is still at a young enough age to continue to be so going forward.

He can’t hit, but man, can he field, something that the front office thought was a vital addition given how much they were leaning on their pitching amid a light-hitting roster. His glovework down the stretch was exactly what the front office had hoped for, and the Reds squeaked into the first round of the playoffs after all.

The first bit of hardware for his efforts has rolled in.

On Thursday, Sports Info Solutions doled out their Fielding Bible Awards for the best defender (regardless of league) at each position, and Hayes took home the honors at 3B – and he did so almost unanimously among voters, with only Joe Sheehan (who had him 2nd) ranking him anywhere other than 1st.

Hayes is also a finalist for the National League Gold Glove Award at 3B, something he’ll almost certainly win as well.

This comes as no surprise, and is an incredible endorsement of what this particular player excels at while playing against the best of the best in the sport. We can sit back and lament that he’s not a more complete player, or question why the Reds sought this avenue to improve this aspect of their team when a bat remains a primary need, but we cannot take anything away from Hayes incredible defense at a vital spot on the diamond.

Now, if the front office can just find enough bats to make him hitting 9th every day not a problem at all…

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/latest-news/48974/kebryan-hayes-fielding-bible-award-best-defenders-mlb

 

[Cincinnati Reds]

Looking back at Red Reporter’s preseason Dumb Predictions for the MLB season

Every year as a new season dawns, I do my best to come up with spur of the moment, lightly researched predictions for the upcoming season. I am not living completely under a rock, however, so these do tend to be hunches that accumulate over months of casual offseason observance of happenings around the league, and while I don’t normally scour my spreadsheets prior to making these calls, there’s at least a smidgen of real reasoning behind why I go with them.

I also try to make them a bit outlandish, because nobody needs to waste time reading that Tarik Skubal is going to be really good.

Therefore, they start out as dumb predictions. And when the end of the season rolls around, they almost always end up looking even dumber!

Here’s the link to the Five Dumb Predictions for the 2025 MLB season I made in late March. We’ll start with these, and I’ll follow up with my Five Dumb Predictions for the 2025 Cincinnati Reds tomorrow.

Get out your red pens and start the grading!

1) Robbie Ray emerges from hibernation again, wins NL Cy Young Award​

Through August 18th, I was kind of on to something – and I’d had him on my fantasy team all year with a big smile on my face. He’d made 26 starts and fired 154.2 IP of 2.85 ERA ball for a San Francisco Giants club that was fighting for a playoff spot, his innings ranking 5th in all of baseball on that date.

If he could finish strong, there could be a chance he’d take home his second CYA after several years of barely playing due to injury!

Alas, he immediately became the worst pitcher in baseball from that day forward, yielding 25 ER in 27.2 IP over his final 6 starts of the year. No, seriously – among 74 qualified pitchers from his next start through September 19th, he had the highest ERA of all of them!

He won’t get a single vote for the award given to the senior circuit’s best pitcher, let alone win it. This prediction fought a noble battle, but still lost in the end.

2) The Colorado Rockies lose 110 games, extend manager Bud Black through 2026​

The Colorado Rockies lost 119 games and threatened to be the single worst team in the history of regular season baseball throughout. That part I got right.

The joke here, of course, is that they’d lost 103 and 101 games over their previous two seasons and still kept keeping Bud Black under contract for some reason. He was in his 9th season managing that moribund franchise! They’d finished dead last in the NL West for three straight seasons prior to this year, and no better than 4th since 2019! They’re run by perhaps the least adept owner this side of Cincinnati!

The Rockies did fire Black, eventually. They started playing better baseball after that, too.

I struck the meat of this prediction, but not the slapstick addendum.

3) Fernando Tatis, Jr. reminds us he’s an all-time great in the making​

A 30/30 season with a return to Gold Glove defensive form is in the wings, and that will result in his third top-four finish in NL MVP voting already in his career.

I think he rekindles the kind of performance in 2025 that launched him onto the scene in the first place and landed him that $300+ million contract.

Fernando had been plenty good over the previous two seasons, but nowhere near the guy who led the NL with 42 dingers in 2021 prior to missing 2022 with a PED suspension. There were question marks galore with him, obviously.

His defense rebounded in a big, big way this year, leading all NL RFs in DRS while being named a finalist for a Gold Glove at the position. He also was valued at 6.1 fWAR and 5.9 bWAR – the former ranking 13th overall just ahead of Juan Soto. He stole 32 bags, which is more than 30, but alas, he smashed just 25 dingers, which is not quite 30.

Still, he played a career-high 155 games and reestablished himself as an All-Star at the still young age of 26, so I got the gist of this one correct. You can still give me an F on technical terms if you choose!

4) The Boston Red Sox win the AL East, represent the AL in the World Series​

I was big on the Sox this year after they’d been sub .500 in both 2022 and 2023 and an even .500 in 2024, and that wasn’t all wrong. They won 89 games and made the playoffs, though they were quickly dispatched by the New York Yankees in the first round.

They did not win the AL East. They did not represent the AL in the World Series. Ope.

5) …where Boston will lose to the Atlanta Braves in the World Series​

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Boy did I get this one wrong!

I figured there was no way this talented Braves roster could be as banged up as they were while winning 89 games with both hands tied behind their backs in 2024. That roster is stacked, and they’d even be getting Ronald Acuña back mid-year this year!

Alas, Michael Harris pumpkin’d, Austin Riley did, too, Reynaldo Lopez was immediately injured, Spencer Strided didn’t look at all the same, and by September they were giving meaningful at-bats to the likes of [/checks notes] Jake Fraley? My goodness, what a disaster.

Atlanta won 76 games, not the World Series, you idiot. F- for this one.

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/peer-in...season-mlb-predictions-cincinnati-reds-grades

 

[Cincinnati Reds]

World Series Game 1 – Dodgers at Blue Jays

Two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell will take the mound for the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 of the 2025 World Series where he’ll be opposed by a guy who began the year pitching for the Dunedin Blue Jays of the Class-A Florida State League.

The rise of Trey Yesavage has been meteoric since then, however, as he rocketed quickly from Dunedin to the Vancouver Canadians of the High-A Northwest League in May, the AA New Hampshire Fisher Cats for eight weeks mid-summer, and honed his craft with the Buffalo Bisons of the AAA International League in August prior to making his big league debut for Toronto in mid-September. The former 1st round pick (2024) and Top 100 overall prospect has since hit the ground running in the playoffs across a trio of appearances, and now will get the chance to tackle future Hall of Famers like Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and the rest of the powerhouse Dodgers roster.

The big news on Toronto’s side, aside from Yesavage himself, is that Bo Bichette is back in the starting lineup playing 2B on the night. Their two-time All-Star has missed almost seven weeks of action with a sprained knee, but he’ll return – not at his usual short, but at 2B for the first time in his career – after having posted a brilliant 129 OPS+ and 3.4 bWAR season in 2025 before it was cut short at just 139 games played.

First pitch will come shortly after pomp and circumstance ends, with coverage on FOX set to begin at 8:00 PM ET.

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/game-threads/48982/world-series-game-1-dodgers-at-blue-jays

 

[Cincinnati Reds]

Trading Gavin Lux this winter makes sense on a tight Reds budget

It wasn’t that the move the Cincinnati Reds made to pick up Gavin Lux last year was a bad idea. Cincinnati’s offense needed another bat, needed one not making a ton of money, and we all know their addiction to adding versatility to their lineup.

It’s just that when the deal was made, we all knew that was it. Rather than bringing in Lux as another complementary piece to their lineup before going out and actually landing a ‘big’ bat, the writing was on the wall that this was set to serve as one of their primary additions.

There may be no deal in recent memory where a new Reds player stepped in and provided almost exactly what was expected of him (by the non-front office, at least). He hit right-handed pitching well, albeit with hardly any thump – .282/.361/.400 with 5 dingers and 27 doubles in 440 PA. He was abysmal against left-handed pitching all year – .179/.270/.196 with nary a dinger in 63 ill-advised PA. He’s a liability defensively in all the spots where he played, he makes very soft contact, but he’s got a good eye at the plate – again, against righties.

That’s the kind of player you can probably shoehorn in as your 26th man if the rest of the roster is built accordingly, namely that you don’t have a defined 2B (really his only defensive spot of any palatability) and you’ve got someone else around who hits lefties with a similar skillset. He’s a platoon bat with light glove and no pop, yet he’s now entering a final year of team control (and arbitration eligibility) where he’s estimated to earn $5 million for that resume.

So, when I chose five pretty essential pieces to the 2025 Reds for a question regarding who, among them, you felt was the most likely to be traded this offseason, it was only a little bit surprising that Lux lead the results with a potent 37%.

I say ‘little bit surprising’ basically because of what I lined out before the graphic. He’s set to earn $5 million for next season before reaching free agency and is fresh off a season valued at -0.2 bWAR and just 0.3 fWAR. Dealing him would save the frugal Reds a little bit of coin, yes, but you aren’t getting anything in return for that – especially after the world saw that not even the cozy confines of Great American Ball Park can turn him into even the slightest of better hitters.

The other four options I listed likely have the chance, if traded, to bring back a pretty impactful return. The three pitchers listed – Brady Singer, Nick Lodolo, Andrew Abbott – run the gamut of performance, team control, 2026 salary, and upside, but all would (to varying degrees) be extremely valuable on the trade block. Each, in other words, would bring back something significant.

Steer probably could bring back a decent piece, too, even though it would likely be a prospect far from making their big league debut. He at least comes with several years of team control. With Lux, though, it would seem to be more of a salary dump than anything else, which makes the pain of having shipped out Mike Sirota (currently #64 on MLB Pipeline’s list of the Top 100 overall prospects in the game) sting a little bit more.

That said, these results indicate something that does seem to be pretty clear – Lux isn’t a core piece now, nor expected to be one long-term with this Reds club, and you think the other guys on this list are.

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/cincinnati-reds-rumors/48978/cincinnati-reds-rumors-gavin-lux-trade-chip

 

[Cincinnati Reds]

Rhett Lowder takes on Glendale Desert Dogs on Saturday afternoon

Cincinnati Reds righty Rhett Lowder will take the mound again on Saturday in Arizona Fall League action, this time against the Glendale Desert Dogs at Camelback Ranch. He’s appeared twice so far in AFL play, but he’s only faced the Salt River Rafters, making this his first foray into some new competition.

Lowder, though, will dodge top Dodgers prospect Josue De Paula (MLB Pipeline #13 overall), who is not in the starting lineup on the day for the Desert Dogs.

As has been the case in each of his first two outings, however, Lowder will have each of Alfredo Duno and Cam Collier in the lineup behind him, as the two other top prospects in the Cincinnati system playing in AFL ball will once again play alongside him. Duno will catch Lowder for the third time, while Collier will man 1B on the day.

First pitch is set for 5:30 PM ET, and should be viewable via MLB.com’s AFL site.

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/farmers-only/48985/rhett-lowder-arizona-fall-league-cincinnati-reds

 

[Cincinnati Reds]

Cincinnati Reds links – Rhett Lowder’s new delivery

FanGraphs’ David Laurila has been in the Phoenix area lately catching as many Arizona Fall League games as he can, as well as catching up with as many participants in the annual fall showcase, too. He had a chance to speak with top Cincinnati Reds pitching prospect Rhett Lowder of the Peoria Javelinas, and Rhett had some interesting tidbits about the way he’s approaching pitching these days.

Lowder told Laurila that he’s been tweaking his delivery a bit in order to try to reduce the strain on the very same oblique muscle that was so injured during the 2025 season, working diligently on being more direct to home plate than off to one side.

“I’ve tended to leak a little bit to the third base side, then compensate by over-rotating,” Lowder said, noting that such compensation from a non-direct delivery basically gets made up by putting excess stress on the very oblique muscle that he injured early in what became a mostly lost 2025 season. And the way he’s building that in to his every-pitch repertoire? Well, that’s by trying to mimic the rocker step used by Los Angeles Dodgers ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

It’s not a leg-kick change or arm-slot alteration that will get a ton of immediate notice when you watch him pitch, but it’s a decisive, deliberate tweak that a) will hopefully keep him healthy and b) will hopefully not alter the effectiveness of his offerings in the slightest.

While Lowder has been off to a solid start to his AFL campaign (6.0 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 6 K), he’s not the prospect that’s been turning heads the most with his bat. That honor goes to Leo Balcazar, who landed on the Week 3 Top Performers list over at MLB.com for his exploits. He’s notched 20 hits through just 13 games and is slashing .385/.439/.462 with 11 runs scored, and he looks 100% back to normal and fully removed from the ACL tear and surgery that set him back a couple of years ago.

MLB.com’s Jesse Borek caught up with Leo after his 4-hit night last night, noting that the 21-year old – who reached AA Chattanooga for the latter portion of the 2025 season – will probably return there to start 2026 as still one of the youngest players in the Southern League. Lotta upside there with young Leo!

A bit of news from a week ago that I missed: JR House is taking his helmet to the desert to become the 3B coach of the Arizona Diamondbacks. House, a stalwart of the David Bell era, stuck around for the first year of manager Terry Francona’s tenure in Cincinnati but will now head elsewhere. No word yet on who Tito will turn to as his next 3B coach, but I’ve got some ideas.

Finally, someone’s been messing with the new statue of Marty Brennaman on Crosley Terrace, with vandals reportedly having swiped the microphone from said statue. Anybody seen Joey Votto around town lately?

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/red-reposter/48988/cincinnati-reds-links-rhett-lowders-new-delivery

 

[Cincinnati Reds]

Blue Jays at Dodgers – World Series Game Three

The World Series is tied at a game apiece between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays, as the former headed north to Canada and took a game against the latter in front of a raucous crowd at the Rogers Centre. Now, both teams descend upon Dodger Stadium with LA carrying both the momentum from a Game Two victory and home field advantage over the remaining five games of the series (if needed).

Future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer will get the start tonight for the Jays opposite the oft-brilliant Tyler Glasnow, with first pitch slated to be thrown at some point shortly after 8 PM ET once the FOX pregame (and the on-field festivities) finally wind down.

Can Vlad Guerrero, Jr., George Springer, Bo Bichette, & Co. manage to hit their way back to command of the series? Or will future Hall of Famers Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Will Smith (maybe?) continue to turn Dodger Stadium into a nouveau dinger-friendly ballpark on their terms?

We’ll find out this evening! Lineups embedded below.

The starting squad for the @Dodgers in #WorldSeries Game 3! pic.twitter.com/fcrCbafosn

— MLB (@MLB) October 27, 2025

This is how the @BlueJays will line up for #WorldSeries Game 3! pic.twitter.com/q3gS1gMPUe

— MLB (@MLB) October 27, 2025

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/playoffs/48997/blue-jays-dodgers-world-series-how-to-watch

 

[Cincinnati Reds]

Blue Jays at Dodgers – World Series Game Four

After reaching base a staggering nine times during last night’s epic 18 inning Game 3, Shohei Ohtani will toe the rubber for the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 4 tonight at Dodger Stadium (while also leading off, because of course).

The Toronto Blue Jays will look to claw their way back into a level series on the arm of Shane Bieber, the former American League Cy Young Award winner and Cleveland stalwart whom they acquired at this summer’s trade deadline.

First pitch is set for just after 8 PM Eastern, and the game will once again be televised on FOX.

Considering how gassed both bullpens are, I’d wager that we’ll be seeing the most possible out of these two starters, and if either is knocked out early this game could get sideways in a hurry. On top of that, George Springer is not in the lineup for the Jays to begin as he’s still nursing the side/oblique issue that forced him out of the game last night. Rumor has it he may still be available to pinch-hit (or pinch run, even) should the need arise, but that puts Toronto without its best hitter from the regular season as tonight’s pivotal matchup begins.

Let’s baseball!

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/playoffs/49009/blue-jays-dodgers-world-series-game-four

 

[Cincinnati Reds]

Should the Reds try to sign catcher Tyler Stephenson long-term?

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Reds fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.

It’s somewhat hard to believe, but the Cincinnati Reds drafted catcher Tyler Stephenson in the 1st round of the 2015 MLB Draft, meaning he’s already been in the organization for over a decade at this point.

On the very June day when he was picked, Mike Leake scattered 10 hits across 6 innings of 2 ER ball against the Philadelphia Phillies in what became a 6-4 Reds victory. The top of the lineup that day will give you nostalgia – Brandon Phillips at 2B, Joey Votto at 1B, Todd Frazier at 3B, Jay Bruce in right, and Zack Cozart at short. Manny Parra, JJ Hoover, and Aroldis Chapman later came on to finish that one out.

If that makes it feel like it was an eon ago, well, it was. Stephenson has been in this organization for a heckuva long time, and we’ve now reached the point where next season will see him turn 30 years old while in the final year of team control before he reaches free agency. That is, of course, if the Reds don’t sign him to a contract extension before that point, something that sure hasn’t had any public rumor leaked if it’s in the works.

That somewhat begs the question, then. Should the Reds explore an extension with the guy who’s been their main catcher for the last five seasons after debuting late in 2020?

When Tyler was drafted out of high school back in 2015, the hope was that his big frame and projectionable power would turn into a middle of the order bat. At times you’ve still seen glimpses of that, but he’s never hit more than 19 dingers in a season nor slugged more than .482 – and that latter mark was in an injury-shortened 50 game season in 2022. To date he’s hit .261/.338/.426 in nearly 2000 career PA, good for a 104 OPS+ (though he’s only been a total 98 OPS+ hitter over the last three seasons of work combined). That’s a decent enough hitter (especially for the slap-hitting Reds roster), but hardly the kind of thumper they hoped he’d be.

Arbitration estimates suggest he’ll earn somewhere around $6.4 million in 2026 in his final year through that process, and any extension will obviously build off that significantly. He also ranked as one of the worst framers among all catchers in the game last season while also ranking towards the bottom of the pack in pop times to 2B, and the Reds already traded for – and gave a contract extension to – Jose Trevino as a catching option.

On top of that, catching prospect Alfredo Duno posted a Top 3 wRC+ among all hitters in affiliated minor league ball stateside during the 2025 season and could very feasibly be in the discussion for major league time by the end of 2026.

So, what do you think? Is Tyler the kind of stalwart the Reds should throw money at to stick around for a few more years? Or is it probably time to start thinking about what they’ll do when he’s in another team’s uniform?

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/cincinn...ds-rumors-tyler-stephenson-contract-extension

 

[Cincinnati Reds]

Tyler Stephenson enters walk year with his Reds future uncertain

It’s still tough to truly wrap your head around the season that Tyler Stephenson just had for the Cincinnati Reds, as a dive into the numbers sends you the four corners of the planet.

His strikeout rate spiked over 11% to a career worst 33.9%, just one year removed from it being a career best 22.7% during a 2024 season that most hoped was a breakout. His BABIP somehow increased, though, up from .307 to .322 while his average still managed to dip from .258 down to .231.

His walk rate increased, which was a positive – up to a career best 10.8% from the 9.3% level in 2024.

He also managed to cut his groundball rate drastically, dropping it from 47.4% during the 2024 season down to just 38.0%, and that came with a requisite increas in fly ball rate and line drive rate. His ISO, though, remained mostly stagnant (.186 in 2024, up to .191 in 2025) even though he pulled the ball 3.6% more and upped his hard-hit rate from 43.9% up to 49.2%. His barrel rate jumped significantly, too, up to 14.4% from just 9.1% in 2024.

There’s a lot in there to suggest there was a tangible change in his approach, something that obviously coincides with a new manager and new hitting coach in the dugout for the first time in a bit. Still, his overall production dipped tremendously, his wRC+ down to 99 from 113 and his wOBA down to just .319 from its .339 peak in 2024.

That’s a lot to process for anyone, let alone a catcher who’s turning 30 in the same year he enters his final year of team control. If you put yourself in the shoes of the front office of the Reds and try to figure out just what to make it all, odds are it would be a pretty tough decision to make, too.

Who is Tyler Stephenson at this juncture, entering his twelfth year in the Reds organization? And is it worth doing what it takes to keep him around beyond just 2026?

I asked that question of you for in the latest MLB Reacts post, and when I got the results I’ll admit I was a little bit surprised. Frankly, I thought the lack of a ready-made replacement in-house (Alfredo Duno is incredibly promising but likely a bit further away) would make folks pine to keep him, and I was pretty sure nostalgic reasons would boost support for keeping him around, too.

I was wrong. Just 36% of those who participated in the poll think the Reds should do what it takes to get Stephenson under contract, meaning nearly two-thirds of those respondents think letting him walk when it’s time is a decent idea.

Maybe the frugality of this front office has gotten to plenty of folks, and they simply don’t think it’s worth throwing money at anyone. Or, maybe the frugality of the front office has gotten to plenty of folks who realize that if there are going to be extensions thrown around to the current Reds roster, Tyler’s simply not high enough on the pecking order to be the guy who gets one.

This also begs an interesting question – if you don’t think the Reds should work out an extension with Stephenson, is it worth exploring what you can get for him on the trade market this winter and at least get something longer-term for his services? He was valued at just 1.1 fWAR (1.3 bWAR) last season, and that’s probably something the Reds could find elsewhere on the market this winter, and there’s always a chance an acquiring team would still view him as the 3.3 fWAR (2.4 bWAR) catcher he was in 2024.

It’s quite the interesting conundrum, one complicated by the team’s decision to trade for and extend Jose Trevino prior to the start of the 2025 season. It’s really, really hard to envision the Reds doling out the kind of money it would take to lock up Stephenson when they’ve already dedicated a good chunk to the guy who’d be his backup, after all.

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/cincinn...tephenson-cincinnati-reds-free-agent-catchers

 

[Cincinnati Reds]

Cincinnati Reds outright Santiago Espinal to AAA Louisville

Over the final 54 games in which he played during the 2024 season, Santiago Espinal hit .311/.361/.446 with 55 hits for the Cincinnati Reds. The utility infielder, never a huge source of offense, chipped in enough to be counted on in 2025 as a pretty valuable depth piece on the roster.

At least, that was the hope. The reality was that he was more or less an abject disaster with the bat (.243/.292/.282 in 328 PA) and even his defense began to slip. After the Reds made the move at the trade deadline to acquire 3B Ke’Bryan Hayes from Pittsburgh to up the defensive acumen on the dirt, Espinal got just 32 PA before season’s end, starting only 8 times (none of which came in September).

Espinal was set to be arbitration eligible for the third and final time this winter, with estimates suggesting he’d take home a $2.9 million salary for 2026. I say ‘was’ here, however, because the Reds chose to outright Espinal off the roster and down to AAA Louisville on Friday afternoon, removing him from the 40-man roster altogether.

As MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon noted on Bluesky, Espinal has enough service time to reject the AAA assignment and become a free agent should he so choose, though either way he’s now off the roster.

IF/OF Santiago Espinal was sent outright to Louisville. He can reject the assignment and become a free agent. Either way, he is now off the Reds 40 man roster.

— Mark Sheldon (@msheldon.bsky.social) 2025-10-31T18:36:25.939Z

The 2025 MLB season could well end tonight if the Toronto Blue Jays dispatch the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 6 of the World Series, and that would start the administrative clock on all offseason transactions. That includes returning guys on the 60-day IL to the 40-man roster, and the Reds have the likes of Rhett Lowder, Brandon Williamson, Julian Aguiar, Carson Spiers, and Tyler Callihan in need of spots. With Espinal a pretty clear non-tender candidate anyway, the Reds seem to be getting a jump on cleaning out their roster before those moves become mandatory.

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/latest-news/49026/santiago-espinal-cincinnati-reds-roster-rumors

 

[Cincinnati Reds]

Matt McLain likely to qualify for Super Two status, raise

The salary structure and team control matrix for Major League clubs is complicated and convoluted, but there are at least a couple of tenets to it that generally hold.

Clubs get six years of team control over players, and the players typically operate at or around league-minimum salaries for the first three of those years – after which time they go through the arbitration process and begin to get raises based upon their performance. The better you’ve been (in at least the right specific categories of production), the more money you make each trip through arbitration, and previous year salaries serve as a benchmark on which you get your raise.

Guys like Spencer Steer and TJ Friedl are hitting that threshold for the first time this winter, and will begin to make significantly more money going forward.

Those years, though, are full years, and partial years don’t quite get you there. This comes into play when you see teams waiting conspicuously long to call up top prospects at the start of seasons, often waiting until May or June to promote them in pretty clear efforts to manipulate their service time – the years of team control – to effectively get 3/4ths of a seventh year of control over them.

As a way to combat that, the top 22% of players with more than two years of service time (and less than three years) become eligible for Super Two status, effectively giving them a fourth year of arbitration eligibility (and kick-starting their increased earnings a year early). As the fine folks at MLB Trade Rumors explained yesterday, that typically involves a service time threshold of two years and 120 to 140 days, with all players who’ve logged at least that much qualifying.

This year, the cutoff is expected to be two years and either 139 or 140 days, and Cincinnati’s Matt McLain has exactly two years and 140 days of service time under his belt. So, rather than play the 2026 season on a roughly league-minimum salary of $780,000, he’s estimated to command a $2.6 million salary through the arbitration process for which he’s about to officially qualify.

Brandon Williamson similarly sits with two years and 139 days of service time, so there’s a chance he qualifies as a Super Two, too. He won’t command quite the same salary increase as McLain, but it would still be at least a few hundred thousand above actual league-minimum.

(If you’re at home doing the math, yes, players earn service time even when they’re on the 60-day injured list rehabbing. So while it still seems like we’ve barely seen any of McLain and Williamson, they picked up service time while on the big league roster even while sidelined with their respective ailments over the last two seasons.)

Each of Andrew Abbott and Elly De La Cruz have more than two years of service time (and less than three), but both will fall short of Super Two status by several weeks, meaning they’ll once again play on a salary at or around league-minimum for the 2026 season (assuming the Reds don’t hammer out longer-term contracts independent of mere team control between now and then).

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/cincinnati-reds-rumors/49022/matt-mclain-super-two-arbitration-salary

 

[Cincinnati Reds]

Ian Gibaut, Santiago Espinal elect free agency

The Cincinnati Reds made make or break roster decisions with a pair of veterans over the past week, choosing to outright both right-hander Ian Gibaut and infielder/outfielder Santiago Espinal off the 40-man roster and assign them to AAA Louisville.

Both Gibaut and Espinal, though, have enough service time as veterans to control their own destinies in these situations. Rather than accept those assignments, both elected to become free agents in search of big league opportunities.

The Enquirer’s Gordon Wittenmyer had the details this morning on Espinal, while Gibaut’s decision was noted in the MLB.com transaction log on Friday.

A day after the Reds announced they outrighted Santiago Espinal to AAA Louisville, he exercised his right to become a free agent.

— Gordon Wittenmyer (@GDubMLB) November 1, 2025

It’s a common occurance this time of year as teams look to free up spots at the end of their roster for administrative purposes. Players on the 60-day IL who still have team control have to be returned to the 40-man after the World Series, for instance, and the Reds now have just 37 men on the 40-man to help accommodate those returns (of Rhett Lowder, Brandon Williamson, and Julian Aguiar, in particular).

It’s also a common occurance for veterans in similar situations as Espinal and Gibaut. Both are arbitration-eligible players again this winter, though both are coming off the kinds of 2025 seasons that wouldn’t really inspire a team to give them a raise on salaries already above league-minimum. In other words, both guys were firmly in the non-tender crosshairs, but the non-tender deadline is another three weeks away – waiting for those three weeks before cutting them loose wouldn’t free up the roster spots they’ll need before then.

So, the Reds went ahead and made it happen.

Of course, both players likely cleared waivers for similar reasons in that no team is going to claim them right now given their expected salary raises. Teams often try to pass guys like this through waivers at precisely this time because they know those 40-man spots are precious right now, though that occasionally means a guy who’s more fringe than teams realize will become available on waivers. Now, the Reds have a little bit more wiggle room to pounce on such a player should the chance arise.

As for Gibaut and Espinal, both have shown they’re capable big leaguers in smaller roles over the last few seasons, and their own expectation is that they’ll be able to land a big league deal to do so elsewhere, even if it’s now at a rate that’s below what their arbitration estimates were had the Reds kept them around through that process.

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/cincinn...ian-gibaut-santiago-espinal-elect-free-agency

 

[Cincinnati Reds]

Key administrative dates for the MLB offseason

It is a perfectly fine and normal reaction this morning to have woken up and proclaimed that the Toronto Blue Jays won the World Series last night. In a perfect world, they’d have. In the real world, the pretty much kind of did, for a bit, and that’s enough for most of us.

That the Los Angeles Dodgers completely a completely bonkers comeback on the field in their opponents’ stadium is the reality, but that’s a mere detail to that Evil Empire at this juncture of their dominance. That they were so close to the brink by this Jays club is the real story, and likely will be for many in the game as we drift further and further from the actual details.

It’s akin to the same way so many remember the ‘97 Marlins and ‘01 Diamondbacks instead of a decades-long Yankees dynasty that won however goddamn many titles they won in that span. Baseball fans across the world, perhaps especially in markets that so rarely make it to the big stage, naturally gravitate to those special, similar teams who actually do.

Anyway, the 2025 MLB season is in the books. Players whose contracts reached their conclusion at the end of the 2025 MLB season officially become free agents today, and five days from today they’ll be able to sign with any team in the game (should they so choose). That means the likes of Emilio Pagan, Nick Martinez, Miguel Andujar, and Zack Littell could only negotiate with the Cincinnati Reds for five days (should they so choose), after which they can sign elsewhere – but as of today, they’re all free agents.

Qualifying Offer (QO) decisions must also be made within five days from today, though there is zero expectation of that being a drama-inducer for the Reds again this year. They can’t give a QO to Martinez again after they did so last year, and nobody else who’s a free agent warrants that kind of one-year, $22.025 million dice roll.

Trades, though, can officially begin happening again today (if any front office exec is up to it and not laying on a beach somewhere for a few days). It feels as if Nick Krall’s entire personality is I got sunburned once when I was seven, so it’s doubtful that he’s out there on la playa. Maybe he’s already hard at work!

Option decisions from both the player side, the team side, and those rarely-activated mutual options must be decided upon within five days from today, too. Players on the Reds that fall into that category include Scott Barlow, Brent Suter, and Austin Hays, with varying expectations on the reality that they get picked up and return.

November 21st marks the deadline to tender contracts to players who are under team control and within the arbitration and pre-arbitration windows. The non-tender deadline, it’s when the Reds will face tough decisions on keeping guys around who are now earning raises due to service time but may not be producing better than players they can find for cheaper. Sam Moll and Connor Joe might see their time up at that point, while the likes of Ian Gibaut and Santiago Espinal likely would have had the Reds not gone ahead and lopped them off the roster within the last week.

December 10th will see the Rule 5 Draft, where clubs can effectively pluck prospects who haven’t been promoted fast enough out of other organizations under the right set of parameters. Each club gets the chance to ‘protect’ players who’ve spent enough time in their own systems by placing them onto the 40-man roster, but obviously those roster spots are pretty precious and limited. So, you’ll see a lot of transactions in the run-up to that draft as teams try to position themselves for the long-term the best they can.

For those players who get tendered a contract in November and are arb-eligibles, they’ll have to sort out a precise figure with the team by mid-January lest an independent arbitrator get involved and settle it for both parties in truly awkward fashion.

How the Cincinnati Reds manage to navigate a lot of this administrative stuff will ultimately determine how much risk they’ll take in the more liquid markets of player acquisition, since finding out a) exactly who’s still around and b) how much those guys will precisely cost is of the utmost priority for this penny-pinching franchise. If they can get through the options/roster-adds/arbitration section of their offseason without any big surprises, we’ll find out just how many low-level guys they’ll be willing to spend on in late January and February this time around, players in the typical mold of Hays, Wil Myers, Tommy Pham, Barlow, Buck Farmer, and Hunter Strickland. You know the deal.

Those are the key dates to look forward to now that the Toronto Blue Jays have more or less basically won themselves a World Series. Congratulations to them, and I suppose to the Dodgers for playing a great heel.

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/cincinnati-reds-rumors/49035/key-mlb-offseason-dates-deadlines

 

[Cincinnati Reds]

Looking back at Red Reporter’s preseason predictions for the Cincinnati Reds

Every year as a new season dawns, I do my best to come up with spur of the moment, lightly researched predictions for the upcoming season. I am not living completely under a rock, however, so these do tend to be hunches that accumulate over months of casual offseason observance of happenings around the league, and while I don’t normally scour my spreadsheets prior to making these calls, there’s at least a smidgen of real reasoning behind why I go with them.

I also try to make them a bit outlandish, because nobody needs to waste time reading that Tarik Skubal is going to be really good.

Therefore, they start out as dumb predictions. And when the end of the season rolls around, they almost always end up looking even dumber!

Here’s the link to my Five Dumb Predictions for the 2025 Cincinnati Reds I made back in March.

Get out your red (Reds?) pens and start the grading!

1) Nick Lodolo clears 150 IP, leads all Reds pitchers in WAR​

Hey! I got this one correct!

Well, I got the idea of it correct, at least.

All signs pointed towards Nick Lodolo entering this season as healthy as he’s been at any point of his tenure with the Reds, and that paired with his talent meant I felt confident he’d end up leading the line for Cincinnati pitchers. He held up his end of the bargain, too, firing 156.2 innings of brilliant 3.33 ERA ball – good for 4.9 bWAR and a hefty bump in his salary via arbitration this winter.

That’s about as good as I could have asked for, and given Hunter Greene’s inability to stay healthy for a full season I felt confident that ‘150+ innings of Lodolo pitching as good as he can’ would be the default for ‘best Reds pitcher.’ Fortunately, I completely overlooked Andrew Abbott’s ability to be even better than that, and that’s precisely what he was.

Abbott topped Lodolo in bWAR (5.6 to 4.9) and fWAR (3.9 to 2.8 in a really awkwardly terrible underestimation of them both), so I only get half credit for this one. Props to both Nick and Andrew on pretty damn stellar seasons, though!

2) TJ Friedl steals 40 bags​

TJ Friedl did not steal 40 bags. No Cincinnati Red stole 40 bags, even, as the runnin’ Redlegs of the David Bell era held up completely under new manager Terry Francona, who opted to rein in his speedsters in lieu of making too many outs on the bases, something that still seems incredibly odd given this team is build on singles and speed and nothing else.

I digress.

Friedl, I thought, would be back to the healthy pre-injury guy he was in 2023, and a full season atop the order with his OBP skills would produce some runnin’. I was wrong. He barely moved. He stole 12 bags, which is not 40 bags.

3) Sal Stewart is a key cog in the infield by season’s end​

At just 21 years of age, Sal Stewart bashed his way through the AA Southern League to begin the 2025 season before completely obliterating AAA International League pitching for 38 games.

Then, in August, he got the call from the Reds themselves.

Across 18 games and 58 PA, Stewart mashed to the tune of a 121 OPS+, socking 5 dingers and helping the moribund offense squeak into the playoffs by the smallest of margins.

The only question now, though, is where he’ll play in the infield going forward, as the front office’s incredibly odd decision to acquire Ke’Bryan Hayes and his noodle of a bat at the hot corner has created a logjam at 1B with Stewart and Spencer Steer.

Sal, though, officially arrived. I’m 1.5 for 3.

4) Elly De La Cruz socks 44 dingers​

I’m 1.5 for 4.

Elly got off to a hot enough start to the 2025 season, a hot June leaving him with 18 homers through his first 79 games of the season. That’s not quite a 44-dinger pace, but it isn’t too far off, and my hopes on this one were still high heading into the heat of the summer when balls usually begin to fly out of every park – especially GABP.

Sadly, hitting coach Chris Valaika got to Elly (and the rest of the offense) and turned each hitter on the roster into peak Jack Hannahan, and Elly went eons without so much as hitting even one dinger. He finished with just 22 on the season despite his legendary power, and it’s just the starting point for questions to be asking about what the living hell the front office and coaching staff actually has in mind for this roster.

5) The Reds – yes, the Reds – make the playoffs​

I’d like to personally thank Rob Manfred for expanding the playoffs so much that you, me, little Jimmy, and even the Cincinnati Reds can find a way to make the playoffs despite entering the final week of a 6+ month season wondering if they could even finish the year over .500.

The superexpanded megaplayoffs have diluted the sport and made the regular season significantly less meaningful, but despite that having been the case for years the Reds still hadn’t found a way to sneak into them for some 13 years. That changed in 2025 as they held a tiebreaker over the New York Mets that earned them the #6 seed in the NL Playoffs and a chance to finally play on the big stage again.

I’m still reconciling my feelings about the 2025 Reds. They never felt like they were really a ‘good’ team despite their elite pitching, and I still don’t know exactly how many of the pieces they have seem like they should be around long-term. Still, they were good enough to clear this particular threshold before crashing out, and that’s not nothing.

2.5 out of 5. I’ll take it!

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/off-season/49014/cincinnati-reds-preseason-predictions-lodolo

 

[Cincinnati Reds]

Ke’Bryan Hayes wins NL Gold Glove Award for work at 3B

Defense has never really been the calling card for the Cincinnati Reds, at least not of late.

This is the same franchise with the same owner and a lot of the same members of the front office who doled out big money deals to bring in Nick Castellanos for a corner outfield spot and Mike Moustakas, whom they tried moving up the defensive ladder despite him being old and slow and woefully outmatched.

Dating back to the start of the 2020 season, the Reds total team DEF via FanGraphs checks in at -175.4, a mark that’s only worst-ed by five other clubs across Major League Baseball. That list includes perennial losers like the Los Angeles Angels, Chicago White Sox, Washington Nationals, and Oakland/Sacramento/Vegas A’s, too.

The Reds hadn’t had a Gold Glove winner since Tucker Barnhart took one home back in 2020, and it sure felt like they hadn’t had a player in front of the plate take one home since the signing of the Magna Carta. In reality, it had been since Brandon Phillips won one for his work at 2B back in 2013 – and Cincinnati hadn’t had a 3B win one since Scott Rolen in 2010.

That changed on Sunday evening, mercifully. Trade deadline acquisition Ke’Bryan Hayes won the National League Gold Glove Award for 3B, and did so incredibly deserving fashion. He had previously been named a finalist at his position (as had Spencer Steer at 1B, though Steer did not win at his position), and it was pretty obvious at that time that he was the frontrunner to win.

Defense is the obvious calling card for Hayes, who owns just a 63 wRC+ in 966 PA dating back to the start of the 2024 season. That’s good for the 5th worst among the 316 MLB players who’ve logged at least 500 PA in that time, which is a painful thing to write. That said, his 25.7 DEF in that same span ranks 10th overall, and that’s behind the outsized weight of four catchers alongwith superstars Bobby Witt, Jr. and Francisco Lindor, among several others.

That’s what the Reds paid for, both in prospects and taking on the remaining millions on his long-term contract, and that’s precisely what they received. Hayes is an absolutely elite defender, and he’s plenty good enough at that to carry him in your everyday roster provided that you surround him with enough offense elsewhere that it’s not a problem. It’s that latter part that the Reds struggled to do in 2025, and it damn well should be the primary goal of the front office heading in to 2026.

Congrats to Ke’Bryan!

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/latest-news/49040/kebryan-hayes-nl-gold-glove-award-3b

 

[Cincinnati Reds]

Hot Stove Links – Top trade targets & free agents

The season is over, the tee-times are booked, and the players who are the fuel and backbone of Major League Baseball are beginning their rest after the grueling eight-ish months of the daily grind.

It also flirted with 32 degrees where I am this morning, and the hot stove season has officially begun.

The Cincinnati Reds enter this winter with a number of needs despite having seen their once young roster mature into a club capable of actually sneaking into the playoffs. But to actually advance in the playoffs, they’re going to need more than what they had, and free agency has already claimed a good portion of the roster that got them there in the first place.

Gone are Nick Martinez and Emilio Pagan, to begin, as well as deadline additions Miguel Andujar and Zack Littell. Santiago Espinal and Ian Gibaut were effectively cut. When the option decisions come down this week, they’ll also lose Austin Hays, with both Scott Barlow and Brent Suter potentially out the door, too.

That’s a huge portion of their bullpen from the 2025 season that needs replacing, while losing Hays and Andujar from an already frail offense puts another huge dent in the roster. How the Reds address that remains to be seen, of course, though the idea that it’ll be done frugally is more or less gospel around here. With that in mind, here are some early looks at who might be out there on the market for them to acquire this offseason, as well as a list of names before those names that will undoubtedly cost more than they’re willing to spend.

Over at The Athletic, Keith Law has put together his list of the Top 50 free agents for this offseason. Names that would fit the Reds roster perfectly like Kyle Tucker, Bo Bichette, Cody Bellinger, Alex Bregman, Pete Alonso, and Kyle Schwarber all rank near the top here, showing just how much depth there is at the top of this particular class of free agent hitters. Of course, none of those guys will come cheap, and that’s precisely how you have to become a Cincinnati Red with this ownership group, so you might need to scroll on down to the Ryan O’Hearns of the list before getting realistic, and likely all the way to Paul Goldschmidt and Andujar before even beginning to get your sugars up.

The fine folks at MLB Trade Rumors released their list of the Top 40 trade candidates for this 2025-2026 offseason, and interestingly enough that’s a list where pitchers dominate the top in an almost perfectly inverse way from how hitters dominated the aforementioned free agent list. Dualism, yin and yang, wonderful complements! It’s a list featuring a lot of players from teams entering rebuilds (read: the St. Louis Cardinals and Minnesota Twins) and those who don’t like paying players they won’t sign long-term (read: the Rays and Guardians), as well as one Brady Singer (at #17) due to his dwindling team control and Reds depth at starting pitcher. It’s an interesting list filled with names who’d make the Reds better, though there are a lot of high-priced former stars on there who could be landmines, too.

Finally, the folks over at MLB.com dropped their list of the Top 30 free agents this winter, a list that all but says the Reds should really sign Kyle Schwarber in a true and just world, but there’s likely no way in hell that’s actually going to play out. Or, it says something like that. They also put together a comprehensive list of all free agents this winter that includes positional breakdown and total fWAR accumulated dating back to the start of the 2024 season.

Now’s the time of the offseason to get your hopes up, Reds fans, even if you know deep down (or pretty shallow down at this point) that it’s likely going to end up being a winter of we just need to get some guys back healthy and for them to take another step forward.

Source: https://www.redreporter.com/cincinn...mlb-hot-stove-links-trade-targets-free-agents